Beyond Bindis: Why Cultural Appropriation Matters

Preeti Aroon is right about one thing — South Asians have bigger things to worry about than pop stars wearing bindis. For example, we have to worry about Islamaphobia, racial profiling, race-based discrimination, and immigration rights issues. And even if we talk about the more benign instances of racism that most of us face — i.e. being exotified or being treated like a perpetual foreigner — bindis-as-fashion is still pretty low on the list of things to care about. There’s only so much you can rally against, in one day — frankly, I’m more bothered by the men who sexually exotify me, by the stereotypes that paint desi men as sexless nerds, and by the assumption that where I’m from isn’t here.

Here’s where Aroon lost me; when she argues that it’s not enough to just tolerate the bindi’s popularity — we should embrace its proliferation. She argues that we should celebrate it as an example of Indian culture positively influencing American culture. She asks us to view Gomez’s fashion choice as part of a broader moment of significance for the South Asian community, a moment that signals our acceptance into mainstream American society. This response glosses over the history of race and white privilege in American society.

The political context in which cultural symbols exist is important. Cultural appropriation happens — and the unquestioned sense of entitlement that white Americans display towards the artifacts and rituals of people of color exists too. All “appropriation” is not merely an example of cultural sharing, an exchange between friends that takes place on a level playing field.

Aroon acknowledges that extensive use of a cultural symbol will dilute its meaning. It is a problem when religious symbols become widespread and therefore lose their religious significance. But the fear of dilution isn’t really an issue here — the bindi has lost whatever religious significance it once had to Hindus some time ago, and is now used mostly for decoration. Madonna and Gwen Stefani didn’t turn the bindi into a fashion statement when they adopted it in the 90s — we desi women already did so years before that.

What makes the non-South Asian person’s use of the bindi problematic is the fact that a pop star like Selena Gomez wearing one is guaranteed to be better received than I would if I were to step out of the house rocking a dot on my forehead. On her, it’s a bold new look; on me, it’s a symbol of my failure to assimilate. On her, it’s unquestionably cool; on me, it’s yet another marker of my Otherness, another thing that makes me different from other American girls. If the use of the bindi by mainstream pop stars made it easier for South Asian women to wear it, I’d be all for its proliferation — but it doesn’t. They lend the bindi an aura of cool that a desi woman simply can’t compete with, often with the privilege of automatic acceptance in a society when many non-white women must fight for it.

I understand being a little flummoxed at the rage that the bindi issue inspires in our community. The anger always seems disproportionate to the crime. But will I celebrate the “mainstreaming” of a South Asian fashion item? Nope. Not when the mainstream doesn’t accept the people who created it.

Jaya Sundaresh is 24, and lives in Hartford, Connecticut. She grew up in various parts of the Northeast before deciding to study political science at McGill University. You can follow her on Twitter at @anedumacation.

“It is a problem when religious symbols become widespread and therefore lose their religious significance.” Only to those who choose to put meaning in the symbol, and only because they choose to put meaning in the symbol. No one needs to change in this scenario, if this person wants their self-created problem solved, except this person.

And there are so many places (like most of NE USA and S Ontario, for example?) here you would be either ignored as another individual, or lauded and pedestalled for your “unique expression” if you wore anything unconventional to the business causal look.

Write what you really wanna write, so we can get it taken down for hate speech and get it over with already.

The poster makes a very solid, thought-provoking point when discussing that a foreign person wearing foreign items (but indigenous to his or her culture) in a location other than the region of that cultural artifact’s origin is perceived as an act of lack of assimilation rather than an empowering one. After all, if a Desi woman in the US (or UK, or Caribbean, or Argentina or China–wherever) chooses not to wear a bindi outside, it’s not a “fashionable” choice for her; it is, at best, an attempt at regional normalcy. If she DOES choose to wear one, however, I would agree with the poster in that is not seen as a fashionable choice, but “quaint” and/or “exotic.” That does suck.

However, cultural appropriation goes both ways. There are plenty of things Asian cultures, for instance, appropriate from America, or Africa, or anywhere else, but by and large Americans don’t get bent out of shape about it. (Blond wigs, for instance.) Once an item moves into a new culture, it is the property of that culture in whatever form it takes, because it does become something new. It DOES lose its original meaning; you can’t expect it not to. Should teens avoid picking up something sacred to another culture and wearing it because it’s a fad to do so? (Ex: Japanese lolita and Christian crosses) Yeah, probably, because it’s blithe. It’s not being done out of respect, understanding, OR personal choice–but out of peer pressure. But should an American woman not wear an Indic wrap dress if she legitimately just likes the style, the fabrics, the colors, and think it looks nice? This is where things get tricky, of course. But everyone can tell the appropriator is not trying to say that she is part of the culture from which the artifact comes, or get its “points.” To do that would be a different story.

The poster’s tone sounds very bitter, bordering on anger, and it makes her argument less trustworthy. Her bias as someone who feels unaccepted in her current culture shows through. She is not being entirely objective, and I think the original woman being responded to is; I think this other woman has a much more healthy view, that stems from being more confident in herself. Of course the writer of this article feels the way she feels, I would never deny that. But it’s a bit sad that she holds on so desperately to a cultural artifact because “it’s mine, you can’t have it—because I have to have /something/ that marks me as part of /somewhere/, because you’re not letting me in without it.” Whether that is true or not in her experience, is that thinking not a major problem with assimilation and racial thinking? Why should this writer hold herself to that thinking, rather than overcome that expectation that sits in her own mind, be a role model to others, and not care what people think? (Like the woman she is responding to?)

Also, for the sake of the author’s argument, Selena Gomez is not “white.” She would, in an academic discussion of race, be “brown.” This is where the poster’s bias really shows through. It’s a fallacious argument that this post has: cultural appropriation is “white against everyone else.” Not so, especially when neither group being referenced in the article, in fact, falls into a category of “Caucasian.”

So, while I feel the article has a good point in it that I will gladly be sharing and considering, but it’s buried under obvious bias.

I think the bias here is actually your own. To the extent there is such a thing as “objectivity” the writer of the article possesses it. She’s looking at the political context of the appropriation, one in which we are not all on equal playing fields. This is something that most people who have taken a United States History class or who read the newspaper regularly are aware of. The other writer is looking at the issue apparently without much consciousness of race inequity in the United States, from an angle of self-empowerment perhaps. The latter is a bit more solipsistic, a bit more focused on a subjective response. Two intelligent people can look at the same issue with a certain level of fairness and detachment and still perceive it differently based on education, experience and other factors.

Huh? Selena Gomez is not obviously “brown.” Only her father is of Mexican ancestry; her single white mother raised her in a Dallas suburb. She didn’t grow up in a Spanish-speaking home. Would you also consider Cameron Diaz and Jessica Alba “brown” because they have Latino fathers?

Cameron Diaz’s father’s family was from Cuba. Like Marco Rubio’s or a bunch of other people who certainly consider themselves and are broadly considered by other people to be Hispanic/Latino. If Cubans don’t count, then Florida ain’t really 20% Hispanic.

More broadly, a huge number of the people in Central and South America are “of Spanish derivation.” That’s why they don’t look like the people in those countries who are mostly descended from the native inhabitants. Nor do they even necessarily speak the same language — for example, in much of the Andean region, people who identify with the indigenous ethnic groups speak Quechua because Spanish was the language of the white invaders.

So what’s the basis for assuming that Selena Gomez’s father fits your definition of “brown” rather than your definition of “white”? Because he’s Mexican instead of Cuban, and Cuban = white while Mexican = brown? Plenty of Mexicans have no more indigenous ancestry than Cubans do, though thankfully Mexico’s native peoples survived colonialism slightly better than Cuba’s.

Cameron Diaz’s father is “Cuban of Spanish decent,” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_diaz, ) so white. I never assumed Selena Gomez was anything other than white. Given that her mother is definitively of European heritage, and she was born and raised in the U.S., I don’t see any reason to classify her as anything other than white. To a large extent, race in the U.S. is based on perception of race, rather than any actual genetic heritage.

The point is that a white American person appropriating South-Asian culture is not the same as a South-Asian person “appropriating” American culture. The difference is history and power. Colonization has made Western, white culture the most powerful culture, the hegemony. White, western Americans or Europeans don’t experience the ignorance of culture that Asians, Africans and Indigenous peoples do. So it does matter who is doing the appropriating, if a dominant culture wants to take a random element of my culture, tear it’s (religious) context apart and decide it’s interesting or exotic while stil NOT accepting my people or my religion and thus seeks to marginalize me/my religion/my culture, it is an insult. The same cannot be said of a South-Asian person “appropriating” western culture. Cultural appropriation does NOT go both ways.

Also, it seems debatable if Selena Gomez is white or Latina but she is the only one who can really decide what she idenitifies with (most). How so ever, I think she falls into a pretty western and American category, not really close to the desi category which culture she is appropriating. Even if she is half Latina, she is still taking a desi cultural element, taking it out if it’s original context and giving it her own meaning. Only if it wasn’t so attached to 1) religion and 2) a culture/people that is still marginalized in the US it would have been different.

Agreed Monkey Pants! And furthermore people need to remember that boiling “White” down to a race also ignores diversity. People forget this all the time. Greeks are nothing like Irish. French are not like Irish. Italians are not like Canadians. Norse people are not like Russians. These people have different folklore, different Gods (pre-Christianity), different foods, different holidays, different dance, different music, and different dating culture.

It DOES go both ways, it’s just the one way has a lot more negative power than the other way. The fact is, if you try to borrow from another culture, beyond the offensiveness of the act, if you don’t really understand the thing you’re borrowing, you’re going to end up looking dumb.

“The point is that a white American person appropriating South-Asian
culture is not the same as a South-Asian person “appropriating” American
culture. The difference is history and power. Colonization has made
Western, white culture the most powerful culture, the hegemony. White,
western Americans or Europeans don’t experience the ignorance of culture
that Asians, Africans and Indigenous peoples do. So it does matter who
is doing the appropriating, if a dominant culture wants to take a random
element of my culture, tear it’s (religious) context apart and decide
it’s interesting or exotic while stil NOT accepting my people or my
religion and thus seeks to marginalize me/my religion/my culture, it is
an insult. The same cannot be said of a South-Asian person
“appropriating” western culture. Cultural appropriation does NOT go both
ways.”

Exactly—-this is what has ALWAYS happened to African-American culture,too—being the minority,you’re always dwarfed by the majority culture anyway,so you can’t escape being nearly dominated by it to some extent. For example, twerking was basically an underground dance done mainly by Southern black folks, but it only went mainstream after Miley Cyrus decided to show out with it at the VMA. Or the Harlem Shake, which was completely changed into some kind of fun but crazy meme that barely resembled the original dance at all. The previous poster still dosen’t get it, though—the fact that it’s never been an even playing field as far as culture appropiation bwt the majority and the minority is the point.

*Hindu* women wear bindis, and Hindu women are not solely in India. Nor are all Indian women Hindu.

Non-Hindu South Asian women also have adopted the bindi in recent decades, but since they are wearing it as fashion/makeup, I’m not sure why that doesn’t constitute “appropriation” if they are wearing it for the same purposes as non-Hindu Western women.

She basically explains it here: “If the use of the bindi by mainstream pop stars made it easier for South Asian women to wear it, I’d be all for its proliferation — but it doesn’t. They lend the bindi an aura of cool that a desi woman simply can’t compete with, often with the privilege of automatic acceptance in a society when many non-white women must fight for it.”

And here: “All “appropriation” is not merely an example of cultural sharing, an exchange between friends that takes place on a level playing field.”

The point of appropriation is that it’s indicative of a power imbalance…an asymmetical power dynamic. The problem is that when a white woman wears it, the cultural artifact (in this case the bindi) becomes an exotic object which makes the wearer seem just different enough from the norm to be ‘cool’…when a South Asian woman wears it, that exoticism extends to the person…and the South Asian woman is viewed as an exotic and potentially threatening object. Which is messed up.

“the bindi has lost whatever religious significance it once had to Hindus some time ago”

Disagree. If my mom won’t let me leave a puja without it, it still has religious significance. The fact that it may have no religious meaning for other people does not mean the same is true for all Hindus.

Bindis now have multiple meanings. There are fashion bindis that you wear for parties, that come in all colors and might have gold beads or tiny rhinestones or something else sparkly. And then there’s the bindi that you or someone else puts on your forehead, using a finger on the right hand that’s been dipped in powder or paste, and that tends to dry on your face and leave a sprinkle of red down your nose.

If it’s not appropriation for non-Hindu South Asians to adopt the fashion bindis, I don’t think a clear case has been made for it to be offensive appropriation for non-Hindu white women to do so.

My mom used to have us pray before school, especially on test days, so I would *have* to go to school with a bindi slowly disintegrating over my face, because my mom wouldn’t let me wash or wipe it off before I had to see my Southern Baptist classmates. This was pre- Gwen Stefani, when I was the first person any of them had ever seen with a bindi. I didn’t pick out a bindi to match my outfit and I couldn’t just take it off. It’s kind of belittling to compare people’s looking twice at you for a fashion choice, to being literally marked out as a religious minority. If risking being called “dot head” was something you only ever did just because you thought it looked cute to “rock a bindi,” then you’re talking about a different South Asian experience in America than mine.

Great article! You make really valid points by saying cultural appropriation is not an exchange between friends, but that there is actually an assymmetrical power relationship between the appropriator and the culture, and that cultural appropriation still does not lead to acceptance of the people of that culture.

The only thing I disagree with is (like the other commenter) that the bindi isn’t religious or doesn’t have any religious meaning anymore. It may be so for you, but it certainly isn’t for me and for many others like me. I consider myself desi, and my (great)grandparents kept the religious significance of the bindi very much intact.

Even though desi girls have started to wear the bindi in different ways than Hindu women did 50 years ago, Madonna and Gwen Stefani still DID turn the bindi into a fashion statement for white American girls, but like you said not for the desi girls. Desi girls rocking a bindi in that Gwen Stefani period is not the same as a white girl rocking the bindi, because it makes the white girl cool and the desi girl just weird.

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Dear Jaya,
What are your thoughts on non-Irish folk wearing Claddagh rings? Celebrating St. Pats? This article comes across very negatively towards whites. As an Irish woman, I think it is very cool when I see Greeks, Chinese, etc. rocking our rings and wearing our symbols. Erin go Bragh baby.

If you dislike how when you wear a bindi is demonstrates your otherness, maybe what you need to do is make it so that people dont feel like indians are insular and deliberately “other”.
by that i mean, maybe you and your culture in THIS country need to make it known you are happy to be here, happy to be american citizens and not just stuck in this ganesh forsaken land because things were moderately worse in india.

“All “appropriation” is not merely an example of cultural sharing, an exchange between friends that takes place on a level playing field.”

Is there even such a thing as cultural exchange? In my opinion, all cultural exchange is cultural appropriation. By the popular definition, cultural appropriation is use of elements from another culture without permission. Essentially, if you are not a member of the race that is credited with the creation of these cultural artifacts, you can’t use them without permission. So how do you decide permission has been granted? There will always be a segment of people who say it’s not OK to use parts of their culture – ALWAYS. Who is the deciding authority on this?

I’m white, but my wife is Korean-Canadian. We had 2 wedding ceremonies – one western and one traditional Korean. Now, there is no doubt that if you were to poll all citizens of the Republic of Korea whether they approved of me being the groom in a traditional Korean wedding, there would be a sizeable segment of people who say they do not approve. Would their voices not count? Did I technically have permission to do this? How do we decide when the act is considered cultural exchange instead of cultural appropriation?

You had a Korean wedding ceremony out of respect for your wife’s/her side of the family’s culture, right? That isn’t appropriation. That’s cultural exchange.

It would also be cultural exchange if a western person went to India, to a Hindu temple, and was blessed by a priest and had the red dot placed on their forehead. Or if a woman went to a party and a Hindu woman had her wear a bindi.

Cultural appropriation involves MORE than using elements of another’s (minority’s) culture without permission. It also involves twisting those elements into something that it was never intended to be. The (fake) Harlem Shake was never intended to be a meme. “Twerking” was never intended to be a white woman shaking her butt in another person’s face. The bindi was never intended to be a fashion accessory for white women.

[…] In an effort to keep this simple & concise, I’ll define appropriation & link you to a few articles: Cultural appropriation, in its simplest form, is the borrowing of certain elements of one culture by another cultural group. [x] [x] […]

[…] in a society when many non-white women must fight for it. wird hoffentlich niemand abstreiten. Beyond Bindis: Why Cultural Appropriation Matters – The Aerogram So scrape your heart up from the bottom of the barrel keep your faith in the path that's […]